A comment by an activist named Sihame Assbague, retweeted more than 7,000 times, said the scene has made France “the laughing stock of the world”.

“I am so ashamed”, wrote French feminist Caroline De Haas.

Nice is one of about 15 French towns which has banned the wearing of theburkini — a full-body Islamic swimsuit which covers the head — on beaches, with authorities declaring it to contravene French secular values and threaten public order.

But the vague wording of the bans, which refer to beachwear that conspicuously demonstrate a person’s religion has created confusion.

Beachgoers have been left to puzzle over whether it refers solely to head-to-toe swimwear, which some non-Muslims wear for protection from the sun, or to being fully clothed and having one’s head covered on the seashore.

A mother of two told AFP on Tuesday she had been fined on the beach in the resort of Cannes for wearing leggings, a tunic and a headscarf.

“I was sitting on a beach with my family. I was wearing a classic headscarf. I had no intention of swimming,” said the 34-year-old who gave only her first name, Siam.

France’s highest administrative court, the State Council, will on Thursday examine a request by the Human Rights League (LDH) to scrap the ban, enforced on some 15 beaches in the country.

Lower courts have supported the decision by French mayors, with a tribunal in the Riviera city of Nice — where a crowd was mowed down in July in a grisly truck attack — said the burkini could “be felt as a defiance or a provocation exacerbating tensions felt by” the community.